Cat Adams - The Mammoth Book of Irish Romance

but for several hundred years now it has worn peace as its preferred outfit.»

«Tara, I know you’re in there. Open the door.» Every patch of false friendliness Dullaghan had first plaited into his voice was now gone. He hammered at the door, making the knocker rattle.

«Taking away the man who keeps the balance, who knows the diplomacy to preserve this peace, will trigger wars that will reverberate in this land, and cost the lives of countless faerie.» He glanced at her, a plea in his eyes. «I cannot let this happen. I must stand against him.»

Ulick sprang to his feet and Tara followed suit. «Open an entrance into time for us, Tara,» he said, his voice still low. He stepped in front of her, between her and the front door. «Do it. It’s our only chance.»

«Can’t we»—

The end of her sentence was swallowed in a massive crash. Her front door splintered into a thousand pieces. Tara flinched, braced herself for the shower of debris that would hit her, but nothing did.

Ulick had lifted his hands to chest level. The air in front of him seemed different, as if it was somehow separate from the rest of the air in the room. Debris bounced away in front of him as if from a shield.

As if he’d solidified the air.

Dullaghan strode into her ruined sitting room as if he owned the place. He rested contemptuous eyes on Ulick, sighed and clicked his tongue. «There you are. Do you have any idea how much trouble I’ve had to take to find you?»

«Aye. I guessed. Ye became a man of history, an excuse to dig where ye felt other Fae resting, looking for me.»

Dullaghan clapped his hands slowly. «Bravo. Te n points for logic. And I would have found you sooner if Tara hadn’t been there to muddle my senses. Now, I’ll not ask if you want to go easy. I know the answer to that already. Never one for making things simple if they could be complicated, Ulick.»

He wasn’t even paying attention to her, as if she was completely inconsequential.

«Tara,» said Ulick.

She snapped out of her shock, grasped his waist with shaking hands, rested her forehead against the hard muscles of his back. Comforting, yes, but how in hell could anyone stand against someone who oozed menace and chill cruelty like Dullaghan did? How had he ever managed to hide the monster he truly was?

«Tara,» Ulick said again, his voice low and calm, helping her focus.

Dullaghan misunderstood. «Oh. Tara? We can negotiate there. I am willing to give you my word to let her go, if you will give yours in return to yield to me without making things difficult.»

«Nay. I will promise no such thing.»

Focus, focus, focus, but how could she call into mind the empty white space when her brain screamed with fear?

«Then she will die with you,» Dullaghan said. Tara didn’t look, just heard the creak and crash from above. She felt a whoomp around her, her ears blocked, and she heard Ulick grunt. She had to risk a glimpse.

There was little to see. There was empty space around them, but if she reached out, she could touch a mass of broken timber, pieces of ceiling, shards of glass and lumps of brick wall. Light filtered through the mass, but faded fast. Dullaghan was breaking the house up around them, piling all the debris on their heads.

Ulick groaned. «Any day now, lass,» he said, teeth clenched. He was holding a pocket of air rigid around them. Tara watched his arms start to shake, the light disappearing.

They were going to be crushed. She had to find a way to make that entrance. Silence. Emptiness. White space. Please, white space, come on!

Something flashed in her mind, a memory of the emptiness she’d seen briefly in the hole she’d called with her mind. Not quite emptiness, though. Empty, but very, very full. Tara grabbed Ulick around the waist. His air-shield crumbled, and tons of debris tumbled down into the space where, moments before, they had stood.

«Wonderful.» He kissed her. «Wonderful.» Another kiss. «Clever woman.» Three more kisses accentuated his words, then the playful elation at their narrow escape turned serious. His kisses deepened, her arms wound tighter around him.

Ulick lifted her from the ground and twirled her around, laughing. «Thanks be to mother Eireann, I found ye. She is nothing if not complicated, our wee island’s soul. Why just take me to a wielder of time magic, if she could find my soulmate at the same time?»

Had he said soulmate? But Tara was too overwhelmed to savour the term. Right now, she wanted to take in the sea of forest around her, the blue-green giant pine trees that undulated to a rim of mountains in the very far distance. Snow lay heavy on the boughs, twinkled in what looked like early morning sun. They stood on the round top of a hill that alone bore no trees, only grass on its gently sloping flanks. Tara thanked her lucky stars that she still wore hiking boots with thick socks.

Ulick turned and scanned the world around them. He gasped, then started laughing.

«What?» Tara asked.

«Do ye see those footprints, lass?»

She couldn’t exactly miss them. A lone line in the virgin snow, they snaked up the side of the hill and ended abruptly a few steps from where they stood. Another line of prints seemed less churned, the snow less disturbed.

«Those are my footprints,» Ulick said.

«What?»

«I ran here before I left Tir na nóg. I was very tired by then. And I know it was me, because in that tree yon, I left my lunch. See? The red sack. I was walking in the woods when I overheard the man ye call Dullaghan meeting with another. A servant in the King’s castle. The man I met in Warrington had discovered their plot, though he knew not who was involved. I turned and ran for the gate to Tir na nóg.»

Tara frowned. «Not for the King?»

He shook his head. «They were between me and the castle, and I felt power roll off this enemy in waves. I would not have stayed alive much longer, had I tried to reach the King. Instead I aimed to reach the one who knew of their doings. Each of us knew half of their plan: he the details but not the mastermind, myself the names but not the plan. I thought if both of us knew all, we stood a better chance of getting word to King Nuada.»

«You mean to tell me that here, it’s no more than hours since you left? Yet you lived through more than 250 years while you were gone?»

Ulick grabbed her hand. «Aye. And in the here and now I must make all speed to the castle.»

Tara glanced over her shoulder as she hurried after him, fear clutching her throat. «What about Dullaghan? Won’t he just step through that empty place to Tir na nóg right after us?»

«He will indeed. And there the Lord of Time will let him through into Tir na nóg when he feels it is best.»

«When is he likely to feel it is best?» Tara let go of Ulick’s hand to run better. He snatched the lunch bag from the tree as they passed, and settled into an easy trot. He grabbed Tara’s wrist to slow her down. «It’s a long way to go, lass. Pace yerself.» He remembered her question. «The god of time is a good friend of the King. I judge he will feel it is best for the enemy to step into this land with not enough time for him to catch us, but enough time to tempt him into trying.»

«And then?» A stitch grew in Tara’s side, but at this pace, she felt she could go on for hours.

«And then prepared men will meet the man ye call Dullaghan, with his fiendish accomplice trussed and ready for judgment. Not men caught unawares, with a cancer in their midst they do not know of.»

Tara jogged beside him in silence for a while. «And then?» she ventured.

Ulick glanced at her. «And then we explore this land together. Or Eireann. Whatever ye wish. As long as we can do it together.»

«Sounds like a plan.» She grinned at him, and ran a little faster.

The Village of Glenkilly, southeast Ireland — 853

«Siobhan! It’s your turn! Come!»

«I don’t want to. I’m frightened!»

«Frightened, mo muirnin? There’s nothing to be frightened of! What could go wrong on your lucky day? ’Tis but a mirror, after all,» her mother soothed, stroking Siobhan’s tangle of black curls.

«Aye, a mirror that shows the future where my face should be, Mother! I’m thinking ’tis better not to know what lies ahead,» she added with a wisdom that belied her years.

«Oh, very well then. Ask it a question instead. What would you see?» Deirdre thought for a few seconds. «I know! Bade it show us your wedding day!» She smiled. «And your future husband. Wouldn’t that be fun?»

Knowing her mother would not give up until she took part in her fortune-telling games, Siobhan rolled her eyes and sighed. «Very well, Mother.»

Taking her seat, Siobhan gazed deeply into the skrying glass. Her lovely face was grave, her expression intent, her brow furrowed.

The large oval looking glass was framed in silver. The precious metal had been exquisitely cast with crescent and full moons, stars, and all the constellations of the heavens, including the sign of Scorpio; the lucky star under which Siobhan had been born twelve years ago that very day. However, the polished silver oval that should have reflected her face was instead as black as a raven’s wing.

At first, Siobhan saw nothing in its inky depths, although she stared, unblinking, for what seemed an eternity.

She was about to give up when her mother motioned her to try again.

«You must ask it your question aloud, daughter. Bid the glass reveal your future husband on your wedding day!»